| The
photo at the top of this page tells a complicated
story. The child's parents have just been shot.
The solider to her side will help take the child
to the hospital. The parents were shot by mistake,
the result of a confusing and complicated situation
common in war. Almost all American soldiers in
Iraq do not want to kill innocents, and do not
wish
to
cause
the
pain and suffering that this children is feeling.
The soldiers are people, just like you. They are
generally good people, like your friends, coworkers
and neighbors. Most want only to do the right thing,
and many believe that fighting for their country
is the right thing to do. source
of story behind photo
Soldiers
are put into terrible situations because the government
sometimes deems war to be needed. In the ideal,
the need for war will be very limited and used
only when there are no other options. But
there are people in power who use war to get
even more
power
for the few. When this happens the wars are called
"wars of choice" or "wars of aggression." When
this happens, soldiers are put into terrible situations
needlessly.
War is
serious. Killing is serious. The government cannot
force you to kill others if you don't believe it's
the right thing to do. Only you can make the serious
choice to kill another person. This is true, because
you do have the option to exercise your freedom
from the draft and other forms of forced military
participation. While the cost may be high for many
Americans (highest for those with the fewest economic
opportunities), you still have the choice to pay
the price of exercising your freedom or of killing
another human being for an illegal war. No one
but you can come to this choice, and you alone
must live with your choice.
What
American soldiers have experienced:
- 94%
have been shot at
- 86%
know someone who was seriously injured
or killed
- 77%
have shot at or directed fire at the
enemy
- 68%
have seen dead or seriously injured Americans
- 51%
have handled or uncovered human remains
- 48%
say that they were responsible for the
death of an enemy combatant
- 28%
say that they were responsible for the
death of a noncombatant (civilian)
source:
Mother Jones Mar/Apr 2007 |
War
deadly and dangerous. No matter how kind a person
you
are, being a soldier in war requires you to be
part of a great destructive force. Guns, cannons,
missiles
and
tanks are used
to exert physical force against others, and often
result in the killing and wounding of innocents
caught in the crossfire. In Iraq, there are good
estimates that as many as 600,000 innocents have
died from being caught in this crossfire. source
of estimated civilian deaths
Story
Behind the Photo:
"Stop
that car!" someone shouted out, seemingly
simultaneously with someone firing what sounded
like warning shots -- a staccato, measured
burst. The car continued coming. And then,
perhaps less than a second later, a cacophony
of fire, shots rattling off in a chaotic,
overlapping din. The car entered the intersection
on its
momentum and still shots were penetrating
it and slicing it. Finally, the shooting
stopped,
the car drifted listlessly, clearly no longer
being steered, and came to a rest on a curb.
Soldiers began to approach it warily. The sound
of children crying came from the car. I walked
up to the car and a teenaged girl with her
head covered emerged from the back, wailing
and gesturing
wildly. After her came a boy, tumbling onto the ground from the seat, already
leaving a pool of blood.
"Civilians!" someone
shouted, and soldiers ran up. More children
-- it ended
up being six all told -- started emerging,
crying, their faces mottled
with blood in long streaks. The troops carried them all off to a nearby sidewalk.
It
was by now almost completely dark. There,
working only by lights mounted on ends of their
rifles,
an Army medic began assessing the children's
injuries,
running his hands up and down their bodies, looking for wounds. Incredibly,
the
only injuries were a girl with a cut hand and a boy with a superficial
gash in the small of his back that was bleeding
heavily but wasn't life-threatening.
The medic immediately began to bind it, while the boy crouched against
a wall.
From the sidewalk I could see into the
bullet-mottled windshield more clearly. The
driver of the car, a man, was penetrated
by so many bullets that his
skull had collapsed, leaving his body grotesquely disfigured. A woman
also lay dead
in the front, still covered in her Muslim clothing and harder to see.
Meanwhile,
the children continued to wail and scream,
huddled against a wall, sandwiched between
soldiers either binding their wounds or trying
to comfort
them. The Army's translator later told me that this was a Turkoman
family and that the teenaged girl kept shouting, "Why
did they shoot us? We have no weapons! We were
just going home!"
source
|
The
war in Iraq has resulted in tens of thousands of
deaths,
perhaps hundreds of thousands. The lowest estimates
of dead Iraqis count over 60,000 dead, mostly civilian.
But other estimates, generated by impartial scientists
and public health officials, have counted over
600,000 dead Iraqis (source). This number is hard
to imagine. It basically means that every person
in
Iraq has
lost a loved one or close friend. The pain of this
is huge. And American soldiers, without wanting
to cause such pain, are part of what has caused
this to happen. Choosing to be part of a war makes
you responsible for part of what happens from the
war.
Each
day in Iraq:
- Almost
100 civilians are killed or wounded by
the war
- Just
under 25 Iraqi soldiers are killed or
wounded
- Over
10 American soldiers die or are wounded
Since the war started:
- Over
3,000 American soldiers have died
- At
least 60,000 Iraqis have died, with some
reliable estimates of over 600,000 dead source
of 600,000 dead
- Over 23,000 American soldiers have been
wounded
- 4,600 have suffered sever head or brain
injury
- 1,300 have lost a limb
- Almost 700,000 soldiers are expected to
file for disability benefits
source:
Mother Jones Mar/Apr 2007 |
Most
American soldiers are good people, trying to do
the right thing. That's one reason why the government
insists that the war is the right thing to be doing.
We have learned that most of the reasons for going
to war were lies, made up to convince good people
to fight for the wrong reasons. In the minds of
most Americans, the only good reasons to go to
war are either to defend the United States from
attack or to aid those in desperate need. Clearly,
Iraq could not and was not about to attack the
United States, despite the lies told to the American
people by the government in the months leading
up to the war. Just as clearly, things are now
much worse for Iraqis than they were before the
war, resulting in no aid or assistance. In the
minds of many throughout the world, the United
States
war with Iraq is best viewed as a war of aggression,
or as an invasion to get power over a part of the
world using war as a tool. Wars
of aggression are illegal according treaties signed
onto by the United States and most other countries.
That's because wars of aggression make the world
less safe in general. When one country uses military
might to exert power over others, every country
must either build up a bigger army (or get nuclear
weapons, as with Iran and North Korea) or accept
that if they don't do what the country with the
biggest army does that they might get invaded.
This causes more wars to happen, and can result
in major wars like World War I and World War II.
Tens of millions of people died in these two wars,
which is why the world's leaders decided to prohibit
wars of aggression as a way to help prevent this
from happening again.
Crimes
against the peace are in violation of American
law because we have entered legally binding
treaties that make certain kinds of warfare
illegal. Nazi leaders who were responsible
for World War II were charged and convicted
with crimes against the peace, based on laws
set out in an international treaty advocated
for by America. This treaty, the Kellogg-Briand
Pact, was adopted by over 60 countries, who
all agreed to not use warfare to resolve disputes.
The treaty never ceded the power of nations
to defend themselves when attacked, but did
make it illegal to invade other countries.
After World War II, the United States and other
countries agreed to limit warfare to national
and collective security only.
The
invasion and occupation of Iraq is in violation
of both American and international law. It
violates agreements that the American government
has made with other countries. This is a serious
matter that threatens the general security
of the American people. When one country uses
force to resolve disputes, other nations respond
by building up their armies. This leads to
a less stable world - a world less safe for
everyone. The world learned this lesson the
hard way in the two World Wars of the last
century. Tens of millions of people died because
power between nations was out of balance and
was based on force alone.
Few
would argue that the United States should not
defend itself. But since Iraq was not a direct
threat to the United States, the occupation
of Iraq was an act of aggression and not defense.
Additionally, the government lied to Americans
about the reasons for the war. No American
should be forced to fight, kill and die for
an illegal war based on lies.
Make no mistake about it. War is hell on earth.
This is a fact of war. When deciding whether or not
to be part of war, you must decide if the reasons for
the war outweigh the heavy costs, both to your well-being
and to those who you will be killing and wounding on
behalf of the war. Only you can know the answer to
this question. |
